Communists want ‘court of honor’ to judge civil servants

Communist Party MPs have promised to draft a bill to introduce a “court of honor” that would adjudicate on the ethical side of an official’s behavior, and possibly recommend anti-corruption courses as a punishment.

Lawmakers consider it “inadmissible” that Russian civil
servants who become involved in public corruption scandals often
evade punishment and censure from society. “We consider it
necessary to institute the court of honor for officials that
would try them for high profile deeds. We want it because, as we
see from court practice, civil servants bear no responsibility
for unethical deeds,” the head of the Communist Party’s
legal department, Vadim Solovyov, said in an interview with the
Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily.

The politician added that public scandals should lead at least to
a demotion with a decrease in salary, but the country lacked an
official board that could make such decisions. Introducing the
courts of honor, which would comprise of well-known activists and
legal attorneys, could solve the problem.

“All hearings of such courts must be made public through the
media and their results must be included in civil servants’
personal files,” Solovyov noted. In extreme cases the court
of honor could order an official to attend special courses on
professional ethics, he added.

The sponsors of the initiative referred to the Soviet-era
experience when courts of honor in the military dealt with
disputes that did not break regulations but were bad for morale.
A similar institution the “courts of comrades” existed for
civilians, but the Communists admit now that these were pretty
ineffective.

The Communists’ main competitors in Russian politics - the
members of the populist nationalist party LDPR have said they
doubt the effectiveness of the proposal. They claimed that the
court can quickly fall under the control of senior officials who
would then use them for firing the people they personally
dislike.

MP Dmitry Gorovtsov of the center-left party Fair Russia said the
authorities should first delete all traditional anti-corruption
measures, and then accept some exotic suggestions from the
Communists. He said the bill on courts of honor was untimely and
did not match the economic conditions in the country, and added
that the government should instead fully ratify the UN
anti-corruption convention and make corresponding changes to the
Criminal Code.